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| Ukrainian presidential candidate Petro Poroshenko casts his ballot at a polling station during the presidential election in Kiev, Ukraine, Sunday, May 25, 2014. An exit poll showed that billionaire candy-maker Petro Poroshenko won Ukraine's presidential election outright, a vote that authorities hoped would unify the fractured nation. (AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov) |
Billionaire Petro Poroshenko won #Ukraine’s presidential election, handing him the task of stemming deadly separatist violence that’s threatened to rip the former Soviet republic apart.
Poroshenko got 54.1 percent of yesterday’s vote with 81 percent of ballots counted, according to the Election Commission in #Kiev. Ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was second of the 21 candidates with 13.1 percent. Russia said it’s ready for talks with Poroshenko, though it warned him against renewing a push against rebels who curbed voting in the easternmost regions. Deadly clashes erupted in Donetsk today as gunmen tried to seize the airport.
Poroshenko is faced with a shrinking economy and a pro-Russian separatist movement that’s captured large swathes of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. President Vladimir Putin, who doesn’t recognize the government in Kiev, has pledged to work with the winner. The #US and its allies had said they’d tighten sanctions against Russia if voting was disrupted.
Poroshenko’s victory “marks an important step forward in resolving the political crisis that’s gripped the country,” Neil Shearing, chief emerging-markets economist at London-based Capital Economics Ltd., said today in an e-mailed note. “However, the challenges remain daunting.”
Automatic Gunfire
In Donetsk, a clash between government forces and gunmen near the city’s railway station left one dead and two injured, Novosti Donbassa reported, citing the regional health department. The station was evacuated.
At the local airport, the government sent paratroopers, helicopters and warplanes after the rebels ignored an ultimatum to leave. Traffic police cordoned off roads approaching the airport, where a column of smoke was rising and automatic gunfire could be heard at 3 p.m. All flights were canceled.
With security a major concern, less than a third of polling booths in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions opened yesterday, the local administrations said on their websites. The largely Russian-speaking Donetsk and Luhansk regions are home to 5.1 million voters, a seventh of Ukraine’s electorate, according to Central Electoral Commission data.
Ukraine held the vote amid separatist unrest that erupted after Russia annexed the Black Sea Crimean peninsula in March. It says the turmoil is orchestrated by the government in Moscow, which denies the accusation. Putin last week ordered a troop pullback from his neighbor’s border after military drills that stoked tensions.
High Turnout’
The election met international standards, according to Joao Soares, who led the observer mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
“Clearly the election took place in a a challenging political and security environment,” he told reporters today in Kiev. Even so, there was a high turnout, a clear result and the vote was held “in line with international commitments.”
In his first comments since the vote, Poroshenko said last night that he’d seek to end the “war, chaos and disorder” by visiting the troubled eastern regions and working with Russia.
Speaking today in Kiev, he said the government’s operation to rein in the separatists should be more effective. That sets him on a collision course with Russia after Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Moscow today that any escalation would be a “colossal mistake.”
“The efficiency of the anti-terrorist operation will be sharply increased,” Poroshenko said. “It shouldn’t last for months -- it should take a few hours.”
‘Equal Dialogue’
Lavrov said the fact the ballot was held is positive and reiterated Putin’s earlier pledge to respect the election’s outcome. There’s now an opportunity to establish a “mutually respectful, equal dialogue,” he told reporters today in Moscow.
Poroshenko said he’d call early parliamentary elections in 2014 as the nation seeks to draw a line under the rule of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, the Russian-backed leader who fled for Moscow in February after deadly street protests backing closer European ties.
Poroshenko, who has a fortune of $1 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has flaunted his business acumen and promised to boost wages by nurturing employment and gearing the economy toward Europe through a trade pact. He reiterated yesterday that he’d sell his assets that include the Roshen chocolate company and will hire a bank to help.
‘Important’ Step
The tycoon, who speaks Ukrainian and Russian fluently, is known for his ability to work with different camps. He was foreign minister under President Viktor Yushchenko, the hero of the 2004 Orange Revolution that helped overturn Yanukovych’s election win, before serving as economy minister under Yanukovych, who had returned to power in 2010.
U.S. President Barack Obama said the election is another “important” step forward in Ukraine’s efforts to unify the country and ensure all citizens’ concerns are addressed.
“The U.S. looks forward to working with the next President, as well as the democratically elected parliament, to support Ukraine’s efforts to enact important political and economic reforms,” he said in an e-mailed statement.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Ukrainians went to the polls to end “confrontation, chaos and corruption.”
The EU has developed a road map for possible economic sanctions against Russia, the Handelsblatt newspaper reported today, citing an unpublished European Commission document. The first stage would include an arms embargo and restrictions on luxury goods imports, the second would ban coal imports and restrict capital flows and the third foresees a complete ban on oil and gas imports as well as investment restrictions, it said.
The red line laid out by Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel for additional sanctions on Russia -- interference with the elections -- was crossed, U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte, a New Hampshire Republican observing the vote in Kiev, said by phone.
“You could have an election in eastern Ukraine if it weren’t for the Russian intimidation and violence,” she said. Bloomberg
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